Energy markets have been relatively quiet amid a lack of drivers, although WTI crude futures are off worst levels and just about reclaimed the USD 56/bbl level to provide some mild reprieve from this week’s product inventory-triggered pressure. Gold and copper were also uneventful overnight with the former stuck near 4-month lows as participants await this Friday’s key-risk NFP data. The main mover in metals markets was Dalian Iron ore which crashed by 7.5% amid ongoing demand concerns from China.

But Chinese stock weakness spread to the commodity markets - which had promised so much growth previously - as Reuters reports, China’s commodity exchanges have hiked transaction fees and margin requirements for a range of futures this year in their latest effort to curb speculative trading that Beijing says has spurred recent price surges in markets from sugar to ferro-silicon.

As Bloomberg's Mark Cranfield notes, China's iron ore future is doing it's best to shock global markets in the way copper did earlier this week. Partially thanks to top miner Vale SA, the metal is having a high volume swoon on the Dalian exchange, which could be the tipping point for another commodity complex slide as Europe gets going.